Virtual Event Marketing Amidst Digital Transformation

The corporate landscape has been transforming and is moving towards a more digitalized approach towards running and managing a business. From storing records to driving engagement, somehow technology and digital advancements have taken over every aspect of how a business operates. Virtual event marketing is a product of this digital transformation and it particularly gained popularity in recent times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the need for social distancing, many businesses organized digital events to promote their products or services to their customers. Said events were most common amongst the B2B industry.

Many business officials and marketers agree that virtual event marketing is a good and powerful tool when it comes to sharing content but people have conflicting views on whether these digital events can successfully drive engagement or not?

What is a virtual event?

A virtual event is an event held and organized by an organization or a group of people online. It involves people interacting with each other on a digital platform on the web and these events mostly happen when meeting physically is not an option. It enables you to host and organize global conferences, product launches, trade shows, and recruitment fairs. There are a number of digital platforms using which you can conduct a virtual event like Google Meet, Zoom, and Facebook Live.

The main aim of groups that organize virtual events is to match or replicate the structure of an in-person conference and it is easier to do that at these times given the new and innovative technological solutions available.

Adapting to digital transformation with digital events

Digital transformation means using digital technologies to support and enhance your current business model and make it more digitally robust. The meeting and events industry went through a dramatic change mainly during the time of the pandemic. COVID-19 caused lockdowns which forced people to work from home, this accelerated the adoption of technology and digital platforms.

While this has been a difficult migration, marketers have adapted to this new method of working. The in-person marketing channels have almost disappeared.

Organizations now have pivoted towards virtual event marketing. They now develop virtual event marketing plans in order to make sure this new channel of marketing provides maximum value to the business. Marketers have embraced this digital channel as a mode for recovering leads and revenue, which in these strenuous times is more important than ever. Virtual event marketing also provides a great deal of opportunity to the organizations as it becomes easier for them to reach a bigger audience and to integrate this form of marketing channel with the rest of their digital marketing mix.

Virtual conference best practices

While planning a virtual marketing event, it is important to adhere to a few virtual conference best practices in order to make the most of your event. Here are some steps and tips, you can follow:

1)      Make sure you have a defined purpose for the virtual conference

As obvious as it sounds, it is very important to have a purpose for conducting a digital event. These said events normally require a well-articulated purpose as that allows organizers to plan the entire conference around that purpose from the content to the technology required, everything would be as per the purpose defined. 

2)      Target Audience

Once you define the purpose, you’ll also recognize the target audience for the conference. Who exactly would you want to attend your virtual marketing event? This will help your company’s marketing team as it would be easy for them to create and design the entire conference as per the likings of their target audience.

3)      Event marketing plan

You need to have an event marketing plan. This would be a set of instructions and guidelines for your team to follow in order to organize a digital event that will be the most fruitful for your business. 

4)      Choose the right digital platform

There are a number of different digital platforms out there and they all offer various different features. A virtual conference requires a greater investment in technology. Once you have a clear idea of your event purpose and the content required for it, you’ll be able to decide which virtual event marketing solution you would need to successfully organize and conduct your digital event.

The Pros and Cons of Virtual Event Marketing

There are conflicting opinions about virtual event marketing. Some marketers say that is a powerful tool as it allows you to market products to a larger audience, while some marketers say that while it may allow businesses to target a wider audience, it does not promise engagement of the audience. When we talk about the pros, the first thing that comes to our mind is quick feedback. While conducting the event you can get the feedback of your audience then and there and besides that, it also enables organizations to track new attendees and new audiences and connect with them on a deeper level. And the most appealing benefit is that virtual meetings are comparatively more cost-effective than in-person conferences.

While the pros are quite extensive, there are some cons to using this marketing tool. Digital events lack a touch of a personal element as the entire interaction takes place online and it also requires people to be a little more technologically savvy, so in case someone from your audience isn’t, it might be difficult for them to be a part of your virtual marketing event. Besides this, it is difficult to keep people engaged in a virtual event as there a lot of distracting factors that are completely out of your control.

Conclusion

The pandemic has been a cause of many changes around the world and virtual meetings and digital events are now a part of the new normal. Marketers have mastered this new marketing tool with remarkable speed but there are still some challenges that they need to overcome in order to gain maximum benefit from this digital marketing tool.

Digital Marketing is now more important than ever. NX3Corp offers a wide range of digital marketing services that can benefit your business. Visit Nx3corp.com and receive consultation from our expert and highly professional digital marketers for the digital marketing strategies that you can implement on your products.